IOC decision on Wrestling

12/02/2013

British Wrestling was surprised and very disappointed by today’s recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board to remove wrestling, one of the oldest Olympic sports, as a core sport from the 2020 Games and beyond.

Wrestling is one of the oldest sports known to man. It was one of the founding sports of the original Greek Olympic Games in 776 B.C. and apart from the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, Wrestling has been part of the all the Olympic Games of the modern era that began in 1896.

However, Wrestling has not rested on its laurels, moving with the times to adapt to the modern TV-led Olympic environment through successive rule changes to ensure explosive and exciting matches. In 2004 it introduced Female Wrestling to the Olympics with great success, achieving the gender balance required by the IOC. The atmosphere in the Wrestling arena in London 2012 was buzzing.

Wrestling is also one of the most diverse sports in the world, with participation across 180 nations from all continents. It is an inclusive sport which provides opportunities worldwide, regardless of wealth, geography, race, gender or physical characteristics.

A sucessful Olympic wrestler has to be a supreme athlete, combining immense strength, explosive power, speed of movement, agility, flexibility, balance and quick reactions. The Olympic movement is meant to be all about athleticism and talent and there are few sports in the Olympic programme that require an athlete to be master of all these disciplines – the complete package.

British Wrestling will engage with the international effort to insure that wrestling remains on the Olympic programme when next debated in May and September of this year.

Wrestling continues to grow at grassroots level in the UK with new coaching programmes enabling greater participation in schools. It is also one of the 17 Commonwealth Sports and the Home Nations have great potential to medal in both Glasgow 2014 and Gold Coast 2018 Games in Australia.

Whilst growing local grassroots participation, British Wrestling will continue to support its world class wrestlers to achieve medal success for Team GB in the Rio 2016 Olympics and to support wrestling on an international level.

Malcolm Morley
Chair
British Wrestling
History and Facts:

In 2011-12 Wrestling retained its place as the 6th largest participation male sport in US High Schools, above both swimming and tennis, There was also a 13% increase in female participation from the previous year
Wrestling goes back as far human history does, and was once perhaps one of the centrepieces of all sporting competitions
There have been depictions of wrestling found on the walls of Ancient Egypt which were thought to have been painted as long as 5000 years ago.
Wrestling was one of the original sports in the programme of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece in 776 B.C., with the most famous competitor being the mighty Milon of Kroton who was a six-time champion in the 6th century BC.
While Greco-Roman was the ‘original’ style, Freestyle Wrestling was invented in Great Britain and the United States and took a firm hold because of its greater freedoms within the rules to tackle and subdue your opponent.
Wrestling was part of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, with the inclusion of a competition in the Greco-Roman style without any weight category specification
Wrestling is one of the 17 Commonwealth Sports, in Glasgow 2014 and Gold Coast Australia 2018
Team GB’s London 2012 Wrestling Athlete Olga Butkevych, came 11th. She then went on to claim Bronze in the September 2012 World Championships, beating the London 2012 Bronze medallist. Olga has the potential to win a medal at Rio 2016
British Wrestling’s other Rio 2016 potential medalist, Yana Rattigan, came 5th and 7th in her last two World Championships